Chained
by Azaisya
Summary: In which the girl she once was searches for the name that was never truly hers. Oneshot, no pairings, Handmaid-centric.


**Just a quick study of the girl she never was and the name she had once.**

 **Disclaimer: Andrew Hussie owns Homestuck**

 **Word count: 1,163**

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Normal trolls had names, although she didn't know that. All he'd ever called her was _girl_.

"Girl, get over here."

"Girl, mind your manners."

"Girl, read this book."

She knew _girl_ wasn't a name. Girl wasn't anything special. It was simply a word for a wiggler who happened to be female. It wasn't a name.

He had a name, although he pretended it was a different one. _Doc Scratch_ was the word for him, and it was a special word, a word that meant him and him alone.

She didn't have a special word for her. She was only ever called _girl._ She never minded, not really, except she kind of did, deep down. She asked him once, because that was before he'd taken her voice, if she had a name. He'd laughed and told her that she didn't need a name because she was less than a troll, less than anything that had lived and would ever live.

When she was older, he began taking her to Alternia so that she could learn about its culture and how she would shape the world.

Really, it was just an excuse for him to talk and talk and talk about his successes and for her to realize that she wasn't normal.

Normal trolls had names, and normal trolls had lusii.

She didn't have a lusii, not the way they did. She had him and that was all. She began to see that she was strange and unnatural.

She wanted a name.

She began to think of names, and she always chose ones that sounded pretty in her head. She liked the long ones, the ones that conjured images of elegant ladies with long hair and glittering smiles. Amarylis. Tuviela. Darlysi. She never settled on one, because none of them ever fit _her_.

She supposed that was because she wasn't elegant. She would never be elegant.

He had once said to her that she was like a falling star (which she'd been taught to never wish on ever because that was stupid and pointless) or lightning. She was sharp and powerful and bound together by nothing but her own will. One day, he'd said with that sardonic tone, she would collapse and implode and it wouldn't be spectacular. It would be quiet, uncelebrated and unnoticed, because she wasn't elegant and she didn't have a name.

She decided she liked nicknames, because nicknames were simply words given to you by people who cared enough about you to create their own, special word for you. She liked that. It made her feel special, to think of nicknames other people might give her.

Doc Scratch didn't like nicknames, but he liked things to be proper.

She learned later that trolls had six letter names because trolls were silly and liked their rules. She didn't care, then, that she didn't have a name, because it was hard to think of an elegant name that had only six letters. She also learned they didn't like nicknames, because nicknames broke their silly rules.

She asked for a name again when she was older, when Doc Scratch sent her to Alternia to watch her future self complete tasks. Her older self had always acted aloof and distant, but when she'd asked for a name she'd gotten a surprisingly emotional response.

 _yOu dOn't need a name. yOu'll get One sOOn anyways._

And so she'd waited. But she'd forgotten how distorted time gets when you're constantly hopping around in the timeline, and it took her a while to realize that "soon" wouldn't be as soon as her adult self had made it seem. While she waited, she became a petulant child because that was what Doc Scratch treated her as. As a petulant child, she threw tantrums and fits and sulked. And her powers grew.

After a particularly bad tantrum, he stole her voice just as she'd known he would. Her future self had never spoken to her, only formed words from her aura.

(She had the aura now, and she loved it because it made her feel powerful and elegant when she could never be either)

It was painful, and there'd been a lot of blood and now there was a hole in her mouth she'd have to get used to. He made her go find her future self on Alternia to learn how to shape her aura into words to communicate, and it was harder than she thought it would be and it frustrated her to no end.

He no longer saw her as a troll after that. He'd never seen her as a troll, not really, merely as an inconvenience, but now she was nothing more than a doll, a tool, a temporary thing.

(Still, though, what did it matter, when she was destined to fade into nothingness without a single person to mourn her?)

And so she became a _thing_ , and a thing was even less than a petulant child because she'd lost the right to _think_. And so now she was a thing without a name, and she filled with anger.

Anger was all she knew.

When she became the Handmaid, her anger was put to use. She became her future self, became the cold, distant figure who looked disdainfully at the hopeful child wearing bright green who followed her around and asked for a name.

It all changed when she met Him.

He was different from Doc Scratch, from Lord English, from anybody she'd every met. When she first met Him, she was filled with her normal anger, all bright colors and narrowed eyes and raised weapons. But He saw right into her core, past the anger, past the petulant child and into her soul.

(No, she didn't have a soul, she couldn't have something so pure as a soul)

He saw the sharp angles and hopelessness that held her core in place, and yet still He smiled and offered her His hand.

He was like her. He had a name, but He had no sign. He had no home, no lusus, no ordinary childhood to speak of. He'd known the same question she had (Who am I really?) and had known the loneliness that had haunted her.

But He was different. He had a family, and love, and hope. He had a dream that was so big, so beautiful, so pure, that she regretted killing Him.

(That had been the first mission Lord English had sent her on, to ensure his death and his Disciple's survival).

He welcomed her into his family and treated her like a troll. And she loved him for that, if her shriveled heart was even capable of such an emotion.

He was the one who finally gave her a name, even if it was the name of another girl, a girl who had lived and died long ago and soon and far away.

But Damara fit her, even if it wasn't hers alone, and it felt right. And so she became Damara.

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